Splish Splash

For a living I help people through home insurance claims. Not the best part of my job, but one that I methodically help folks through all the time. "Yes sir we will pay for whatever the water damaged from the leak in your pipes ", " Your policy will pay to replace those stolen items", "First step Mrs. Smith is to get someone to come extract the water and dry it up". Whew, going through the motions takes on a whole new meaning when it happens to you.

Sunday we had a great day. The four of us went to the mall, had a nice meal together, and ran errands all day. We were out from about 11AM until 10PM. We were tired from the long day and ready to go home to cuddle up to a movie. I love coming home after a day like that , this time coming home wasn't as pleasant. Still I realize it could have been much much worse.

John let me know that fish tank broke while we were gone. The look on his face was so sad!! I have never seen that one. There wasn't a drop of water left in that tank. All 55 gallons were all over our home and what is worse we lost our pets. All of our salt water reef fish were gone. The fish, invertebrates, anemones, corals, you name it , we lost it, thousands of dollars I would say that we accumulated in the last 3 years. We had started that tank mainly for Tyler who loves Nemo, all of Nemo's friends were in there. Often the kids would literally want to take their high chairs up to the tank to sit directly in front of them to eat their meals. They loved those fish. They were like part of the family, always something cool to discover in there. (We had recently found 2 baby starfish for example!) That was probably the worse part in hind sight. My heart still sinks when I think of it.

Tyler cried, I cried, Gen cried. Tyler really cried. I had to explain why they were dead, and that they were in fish heaven, yikes. Didn't think I would have to explain all of that on this night out of nowhere. I guess it was better to go through death and heaven when it was about animals rather than a person though. Still it didn't make it much easier.

At that time of night we had to call a water restoration company to extract the water. It was just too much for us to pick up. There was water on the kitchen floor (vinyl) that then went down into the carpet in the family room and then ran to the hardwoods towards the entry way hall. What a mess. They gathered what they could and then put up fans and dehumidifiers. Total we have 7 machines in there now. We didn't go to bed when all was said done until about 3 AM that night.

Poor Tyler thought that someone came in and did that to his fish. His exact words were "who doesn't love me that came in here and did that to my tank". Aww. How he thinks of these things I have no idea. He was pretty wound up and nervous for that night so it was hard to get them down to bed. Understandable to say the least- not to mention the machines are SO LOUD! They can be heard upstairs even with the bedroom door closed.

That night I think no one really slept. The machines make the house so HOT! These past days have been unbearable as it is and it was just terrible in there. We put the AC on 60 and it was still reading 82 degrees. So on Monday we had to clean up some more and go buy an AC unit to put in the bedroom window so that we could at least have one cool room for all of us to sleep in. Monday was still a sad day because it was Gens Bday and we had a fun day planned that didn't pan out. Instead, we ended up spending some time with her but then dropping them off at Mimi's until 9PM (depressing to leave her on this day) so that we can get the house in order. Or at least try to mop and get some things up etc.

As of now it looks like the carpet has to be replaced, the vinyl repaired, and the hardwoods are still debatable, because they are still wet. Well everything is still wet in there for that matter.....even the wall. They ended up taking the base boards off and drilling some holes in the wall to try and dry it up. So we will see what the final verdict is soon I hope.

For now, I will still dread going home to the heat, noise and mess.......We literally open the door and go straight upstairs. I try to dodge questions from Tyler about his fish. The kid can outsmart me if I let him. Tomorrow we should hear more about the repairs, wish us luck.